Looking Death in the Eyes at New Wave on Friday

A cowboy in black walks into a café.

Like that joke, this story has no punchline.

This man in black walks into my café. He’s an older man, but you wouldn’t call him an “older gentleman” yet. Could be 50. Could be 60. Could be aging fast. Could be aging well. He’s wearing the black cowboy boots, the black cloak and a black cowboy hat with its devilish black curves. His boots don’t have any spurs, but the toes come to a silver tip. And as I notice them, I notice also that he walks with a enigmatic limp that sort of drags his right foot behind him as if dead. In pain, he scowls ever so slightly under the brim of his hat, behind his silver barrel of a mustache, over thin silver knife of hair that runs from his lips to his chin.

He is going to be the villain of this piece, I think. If this were an old west saloon, the room would choke-off silent as the cowboy in black drags on in. He would order his drink and the bartender would stammer his assent: whiskey—no brand, no directions, no quantity. The barkeep would say “right away” and call him “Mr. ____”

The cowboy in black takes a seat at a table for two against a brick wall across the room. He doesn’t take off his coat or hat. He digs his hands throughout his coat—I can’t make inside from outside in that obsidian mass—and holds it low in hard, white hands, each added weight by bulging silver rings.

He looks up. His red eyes look right at me.

If this were an old west saloon, this would be it. I’d be a fucking dead man. And every man in here would know it.

He’d be my huckleberry. He’d throw a gun at my feet and tell me to pick it up. He’d shoot me dead the moment I bent for the handle. He’d tell me I am no daisy. He’d look around the room. He’d tell the room:

“You all saw him. He had a gun.”

And I would die the western death of the unwise.

He looks back to his phone and in a minute is joined by, improbably, a wraith-thin Asian woman in a native American tribal sweater. She is young and seems happy—not particularly elated or animate, but buoyant for a Chicago girl come mid-December.

Hey, the saloon breathes a sigh of relief. Go on and re-write the number on the chalkboard: "26 days without an 'accident.'" A round for whole bar! Charge it to that black fellow in the glasses, who doesn't know how lucky he is!





Currently listening to: “Wake” by the Antlers

Silent Date

A girl asked if I was using the other seat at my table and when I motioned "No" she sat down.That never happens to me. She was younger, thin, bronzed by Mediterranean generations, thin-faced but with open eyes with heavy lashes like black-silk palm branches and lips like red pool furniture. An interesting collection of parts that neither disappointed nor excited me.

we shared the table for two hours without contact
neither of us dropped anything for the other to pick up
neither of us sneezed to receive the other's blessing
neither of us peeked up at just the time to catch the other peeking back
a song came over the speakers haphazardly loud
and we both looked up, recriminating stares, to the barista until she turned it down
but we did not wink to each other to share in the job well done
we did not voice a recognition that we made a good team

It was a safe, silent date, complete with invisible flowers and zero promises we couldn't keep. Give me a billion dollars and I will make the one safe space on Earth

a white room where nothing goes unseen
and padded walls and no gravity
and it would need to have no doors of course.